Writer's (Un)Block: Position

The biggest problem I have with my new columnist gig at Learn.PokerNews.com is deciding what to write about. No, I don’t mean I lack for ideas; au contraire mes amis. If anything, I have a glut of interesting topics and ideas. Picking and choosing where to start is actually kind of challenging, and I can honestly say I lost a little sleep in the last few days trying to figure out what might be the right place to begin.

So what did I decide for my first official article? Well, when in doubt, go back to the basics. The Learn website is focused on educating beginning and entry-level poker players, so why not start with a fundamental “beginning” concept? And right down there on the bottom rung of my Pyramid of Poker Skills is one of the most important of all concepts in poker: Position.

Yep, it’s old hat for intermediate and advanced players, but learning to play a positionally-aware game is key to learning to win. If you fail to master this, you will fail to make money at poker. Period. Yes, this is true. And, no, I’m not overstating it. Here’s a little graph I’m going to include in my article to hammer home the point:

I took this data from my last 10,000 hands of $100NL and $200NL played online: If this doesn’t convince you of the power of position, I really don’t know what would….

Anyway, I’ll let you know when the first article comes out in early November. And don’t worry; I’m going to keep posting here on the blog as usual. Turns out I have more than enough ideas for both my blog and Learn…

All-in for now…
-Bug